4 Reasons You're Not Getting Customers From Your Social Media Marketing

As a small business owner in 2021, you might be wondering “Why am I not getting any customers from my social media marketing?”

In our current business climate, digital marketing has become increasingly important over the past 12 months. Unfortunately, many businesses were not prepared to begin finding their customers online.

Most business owners underestimate the difficulty of bringing in customers from social media.

You should just be able to post and have customers come to you, right?

Wrong.

Social Media Marketing requires focused effort in key areas to see any results.

If you're frustrated by not bringing in customers from social media, here are some reasons why that may be happening, and some solutions to help you overcome those reasons.

Reason #1: You’re Not Thinking About Your Customers

One of the largest mistakes we see businesses making online is forgetting who their target market is.

Every problem with your digital marketing will stem from this.

When you don’t know who you’re trying to appeal to, you’ll never create the right content.

This is why we encourage all small business owners to get VERY clear on who their ideal customer is before starting any internet marketing efforts.

If you haven’t been attracting any new customers on social media yet, it’s likely because your content isn’t specific.

By not appealing to a specific audience, your content appeals to nobody.

Your audience wants to feel special and understood, and you should make them feel that way!

If you don’t, they’ll likely never choose your business.

Solution:

Before you create any posts or ads, do some brainstorming on who your target market is. Be as specific as possible with this exercise, as your content and ads will be far more effective when you are more targeted.

Reason #2: You’re Not Looking at Your Insights

Insights on your Facebook and Instagram page are a key part of understanding what parts of your social media marketing strategy are and are not working.

As shown in the picture above, Facebook provides a graph to show when your audience is most active on the platform.

If you want to reach more people, you should post when your audience is online.

If you’ve been posting at 2pm, but see in this chart that your audience is most active at 7pm, you should adjust your strategy to post at 7pm instead of 2pm.

This simple change will immediately make a large impact with your social media accounts.

As you see in this photo above, some posts perform better than others.

As we re-visit the social media strategy for this non-profit that we work with, we’ll find ways to replicate the best performing posts, and find ways to improve the posts that didn’t perform well.

It’s important to visit your insights at least once per month.

Your social media marketing strategy will evolve over time, so it’s important to consistently audit your efforts to see what is working best for you.

Insights are not only a Facebook feature. Instagram also has built-in insights that help you understand how your posts and stories are performing.

Instagram allows you to see a breakdown of what posts are performing best, how your audience has grown, and when your audience is most active.

Solution:

Start by taking 30 minutes to go into your Facebook and Instagram business accounts to get an idea of what posts are performing best and what times your audience is most active. Make note of how you're performing and adjust your plan accordingly.

In 2-4 weeks re-visit these insights to see if your new efforts are performing better than the last time you checked your insights. Make note of any posts that are performing exceptionally well or are performing worse than usual.

Repeat this process and commit to consistently optimizing and improving your social media skills and efforts.

Reason #3: Your Ads Are Too Generic

Love them or hate them, Facebook Ads are here to stay, and they offer small businesses a chance to reach their target market for relatively cheap.

Back before social media advertising was a thing, businesses were forced to pay exorbitant amounts of money for radio, tv, or newspaper ads.

Not only were they incredibly expensive, but how can you possibly track the conversions that come from those ads?

Facebook ads offer a broad reach and superior conversion tracking.

But, what happens if you aren’t getting any new customers or sales from them?

Like we mentioned back in tip #1: You’re probably not creating content for your target market.

When you create a Facebook ad, you want your target customer to feel like you’re talking directly to them.

Not too personal, because that’s creepy, but you want to have a specific person you want your ads to reach.

When you know that information, your targeting can be VERY specific.

If you know that your target customer is a 35-45 year old woman who has kids, then you should show your ads to those people!

Don’t settle for generic targeting that reaches everyone in your area from the ages of 18-65. At that point, you’re essentially just hoping that you get lucky enough to have your ads shown to your target market.

The more specific targeting that your ads have, the more you can saturate that segment of that market.

You would much rather have your ads shown 2-3 times to your target market for the same ad spend than to have it shown once to a bunch of people who won’t buy.

When you create your targeting within Facebook Ads Manager, add in as many relevant targeting information to your ad set as you can.

Pro tip: When given the option choose “people living in this location” rather than “people recently in this area.” By doing this you’re ensuring that the people that see your ad are much more likely to have the potential to become your customers

Solution:

Take the time to get clear on the characteristics of your most profitable customers. When you have this information, you can then create ads that appeal to the people just like them.

Once you know who you want to show the ads to, take the time to add all the relevant targeting information into your ad set.

By being specific, your ads will have a greater impact and will be more likely to bring you back a positive return on your ad spend.

Reason #4: You're Not Bringing in an Expert

Running a business requires you to have a knowledge of how to do all the jobs within your business, but it doesn’t mean you should do all of them.

Outsourcing your marketing to a reputable and knowledgeable internet marketing company is a great way to ensure you see a positive return from your digital marketing efforts.

By hiring a qualified marketing agency, you can focus on servicing the customers that come into your business, rather than going out and finding those customers.

Many business owners cringe when they hear the words “Marketing Agency” because of the flaws of previous agencies in the space.

The truth is, finding a qualified and reputable agency is easier than ever now. With online reviews, client testimonials, and social media all at your disposal, you can find a great company to help you dial in your online marketing to start attracting your dream customers.

Solution:

Take the time to research the local marketing agencies in your area. If you're in the Seattle area, Entrust Marketing is a great local option to help you develop your social media marketing strategy.

With years of marketing experience in many industries, we can help you develop your marketing strategy, implement those strategies, or help to point you in the direction of an expert in your industry if we weren't able to help.

Conclusion

Today’s business climate requires a creative approach to marketing. With customers being more educated than ever, more competition, and tighter budgets, digital marketing can be very difficult.

By following these four simple tips, your business will have a great chance at standing out online to begin attracting new customers.

Looking to start bringing in customers from your social media marketing in Auburn,Washington or the Greater Seattle area? Head over to our scheduling page to schedule a complimentary marketing strategy planning session to help you dial in your 2021 marketing.